How to Make Effective Onboarding Videos — WistiaFest 2017

Phil Wesson, Video Marketer at Toast, manages all video production and has created over 70 onboarding training videos. Onboarding videos are not only helpful for new hires, but also for new customers. However, you have to treat each differently.

You should establish whether or not video for onboarding would positively impact your organization. For employees, it’s important to think about your productivity, wasted capital, benefits of standardizing onboarding, and members of your team who are remote. When considering customers, be mindful of what happens to those who don’t know how to properly use your product.

The benefits of using video for onboarding include delivering concise, solid messaging, faster learning through a visual medium, easier updating for new information, and brand strengthening. Effective videos can help improve new hire retention. On the other hand, onboarding videos can teach customers how to use your products. Happy employees and customers have the potential to become Evangelists of your brand.

Wesson walks through onboarding videos from Cisco, Monster.com, RubberStamp, and Frame.io. Although two were for employees and the other for customers, they all exemplified effective videos that helped people make decisions and move forward. There was no fluff.

If you’re planning for video onboarding employees, explain how your company achieves success from a high level. You should break down skills needed for each position, and build a hierarchical outline. Speak with subject matter experts for every task, and get those people on camera. Use features like playlists to make learning easy for new hires.

For customers, start with the basics of your product. Show plenty of step-by-step screen caps of how your product works, explaining how each task is accomplished. Slowly ramp up from beginner to advanced, and add review sections.

After you’ve created your videos for either employees or customers, it’s always a good idea to get feedback!

Watch Wesson’s presentation to learn all about how to make effective onboarding videos for employees and customers.